Ascanio Celestini: The reinterpretation of St. Francis that exalts the power of non-violence
Ascanio Celestini, the renowned Italian artist, arrives in Sardinia with his new show “Rumba”, inspired by St. Francis of Assisi. “Francesco is an organic intellectual in the gramscian sense, who adheres to the subaltern classes and peacefully fights for their emancipation,” Celestini tells ANSA. “His revolution does not lead to conflict and confrontation, but sublimates it through non-violence.”
The show will be performed on Tuesday, May 7th at 8:30pm at Bocheteatro in Nuoro, on Wednesday, May 8th at 9pm at Costantino in Macomer, on Thursday, May 9th at 8:30pm at Teatro Akinu Congia in Sanluri, and on Friday, May 10th at 9pm at Centrale in Carbonia, as part of the Grande Prosa del Cedac. “Rumba” concludes a trilogy that began ten years ago with “Laika” and continued with “Pueblo”, a story set in an ordinary suburb. Celestini is one of the most significant performers in narrative theater, where civic engagement combines with irony and poetry.
“The characters are poor people, not so different from those Francesco encountered in the 13th century,” emphasizes the director and protagonist of the piece. “Rumba”, or “The donkey and the ox of St. Francis’ nativity scene in the supermarket parking lot”, is a suggestive modern fable with music by Gianluca Casadei and voiceover by Agata Celestini. The images are by Franco Biagioni, produced by Fabbrica, Fondazione Musica per Roma, and Teatro Carcano in collaboration with the Comitato Greccio 2023.
Eight hundred years after the first living nativity scene in the medieval village on the Sabini Mountains, Ascanio Celestini reinvents the representation of the Nativity in a contemporary key and tells the stories of Giobbe, an illiterate warehouse worker, the Lady of the Slots, and a smoking gypsy. But also of Santa Chiara, “a strong woman, closer to a guerrilla fighter than to a submissive and contemplative girl.”
A refined storyteller, author, and performer of shows such as “Cicoria” (Chicory), “Radio Clandestina”, “Scemo di guerra” (Fool of War), “La pecora nera” (The Black Sheep), and “Museo Pasolini” (Pasolini Museum), Celestini’s career spans across theater, cinema, literature, radio, and television. He emphasizes that “art always plays an active role. The responsibility of the artist lies in choosing. There is no comedy or drama for its own sake. Everything is political because neutrality, understood as equidistance, does not exist when we are part of a community. ‘Neutrality’ is simply indifference. And as Gramsci wrote, ‘Indifference is abulia, it is parasitism, it is cowardice, it is not life. That’s why I hate the indifferent.'”
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